


Five Ships that Never Set Sail

by Mattecat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 5 Things, F/F, F/M, focus on female character, various relationship focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattecat/pseuds/Mattecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nepeta wondered if she would ever find a matesprit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ships that Never Set Sail

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea and ended up writing it in less than an hour so although I've gone through it and corrected any mistakes I found I don't have a beta reader so I don't know how good it is. I hope you enjoy it anyway!

**Equius**

When Nepeta first met Equius, she kissed him.

Back then, she didn't really understand the importance of moiralligience, and what it meant for trolls. Her mind was filled with thoughts of finding the one special trolls to be her matesprit, and though she had been schoolfed about all the other quadrants, nothing managed to sink in for her.

She talked to Equius, got to know him, and thought, maybe, this is it. He was weird and smelly and cared way too much about the hemospectrum to the point where he hardly talked to her at first, and Nepeta liked him! He was passionate about what he cared about and kind to her, and maybe that meant that he would be the matesprit she was looking for.

"I assumed," he said, when they were taking care of her bruised and swollen lips, "that your intentions were pale."

"Pale?" Nepeta hadn't thought about being moirails with him. But then again... she thought about how she tried to convince him to not be so uptight all the time, and how he actually listened sometimes, and how though maybe it was annoying the way he was constantly correcting her behavior, when she listened to him, she found that he was right (sometimes), and how all in all, she didn't think she wanted to kiss him.

"Yeah," she said. "I think they were."

* * *

**Terezi**

Terezi was wonderful. Terezi was the best roleplaying buddy ever, and they designed dozens and dozens of scenarios together. She was AC, the fierce purrbeast, and Terezi was GC, the majestic dragon. She loved every part of their chats – she loved the roleplaying, she loved hearing about Terezi's FLARPing sessing and getting to replay them in her head (Equius never lets her FLARP. He said it was dangerous, but the only real difference between when she hunted animals and a FLARP session was that you hunted trolls and you only killed them sometimes) and maybe, just maybe, she loved Terezi?

But Terezi loved Vriska.

Nepeta didn't realize that she had a sense for those things before, but it became more and more clear as time went on. Terezi talked about how she and Vriska just had the B3ST S3SS1ON 3V3R >:], describing in detail their exploits and the latest criminal they had brought to justice. Nepeta listened, and she started doodling on her cave walls, and then one day she looked at the picture of her and Terezi, and scratched an X over it.

It was ok, she thought, as she circled Terezi and Vriska in bright red, it probably wouldn't have worked out after all. Terezi didn't seem as into their roleplaying games as she was before. Maybe, this was for the best.

After that, she started keeping track of all the relationships between her twelve friends, playing out scenarios in her head, drawing them on her wall, and seeing which ones became real and which ones were just like her 5-sweep-old crush.

* * *

**Eridan**

Eridan saved her life, but only because he had to. He didn't like her much at all, except as a potential matesprit, and Nepeta didn't really like him either. She considered it for a moment; there were only twelve trolls left, and her options were limited. Especially when she knew that Karkat was just as in love with Terezi as she was, once, maybe more. Maybe Eridan wouldn't be so bad?

And then she thinks yes, yes he would, and regects him. Equius compliments her on it later.

* * *

**Jade**

Jade didn't want to talk to her. She thought Nepeta was an internet troll, which was different from a regular troll in a way that Nepeta didn't quite understand (how did the humans know what a troll was, anyway?) and thought her roleplaying was just teasing. But Nepeta didn't know how to start conversations with strangers any other way, so she kept trying, and trying, and trying.

It never worked. Nepeta tried early in her timeline, later in her timeline, but she was always brushed off. It hurt. Jade was so nice to her friends; why couldn't Nepeta be her friend, too?

She didn't remember who was the first to bring up the idea of human and troll relationships, but once the idea was in her head, it stuck there, like a piece of flesh between her teeth that wouldn't get out. She listened to what her friends said about the humans, and updated her shipping wall appropriately. John and Karkat was apparently a bust due to some weird human custom, but Rose and Kanaya might not be, and Dave and Tavros seemed to have something going on, or maybe Dave and Terezi...

She drew herself and Jade, and thought about what might have happened if Jade hadn't spurned her advances. Then she painted over it with an enormous picture of her and Karkat, and wrote "OTP" at the top.

Yes, she thought, this was who she was flushed for. Not Equius, not Terezi, not Eridan, and not Jade, no matter how nice and wonderful a person Jade was. She loved Karkat, and maybe, one day Karkat would love her back.

* * *

**x**

Later she dies.

* * *

**Karkat**

She found her prince.

He was a Knight, really, but to her, he was a prince, and Nepeta was his princess. She told him that, and he said that was stupid, but his cheeks blushed red, and it was so wonderful being together with him, and spending time with him, that Nepeta didn't mind being dead so much.

Karkat said he didn't mind it, either.

Nepeta knew, that no matter what happened, everything would turn out okay in the end. Jade and her friends would save the remaining trolls, and her timeline's Karkat would be happy with Terezi, because she had her Karkat, and as he smiled at her, Nepeta thought that she had never been happier in her entire life.

* * *

_The sarcophagus descends into their dreambubble, and Nepeta has a moment where she thinks, Wait, no, this isn't right, and then everything is gone._


End file.
